


no sir, we'll stay young forever

by stillusesapencil



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, F/M, M/M, Poetic Language, jack kelly's future life as imagined by me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 02:28:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20382178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillusesapencil/pseuds/stillusesapencil
Summary: The road is rocky, but they’re making their way.The new century dawns, and with it, hundreds of young people in New York City look to a better future. Hope is deep in their breasts, and they cling to the belief that the new century will be better.For children. For women. For the quiet, unseen queer community. For all of them.





	no sir, we'll stay young forever

**Author's Note:**

> I originally wrote and posted this in April, but I had to take it down like a month later. But it's back now! I'm just sad I had to lose all the original sweet comments people left me.
> 
> OG notes:
> 
> This is my first work for this fandom. Please be kind.
> 
> There is some unrequited crutchie/jack but I didn't tag it because it's not the key focus or anything.
> 
> I am deeply indebted to [newsiesquare](http://www.newsiesquare.tumblr.com) for their insightful analysis and references and information.

After the strike, things don’t go back to normal. They weren’t supposed to go back to normal; that was the point of the strike, but maybe Jack was quietly expecting things to go back to the way they were before, somehow. 

For a while, he still lives in the lodging house, and sleeps on the roof. It’s warm enough to sleep on the roof, and will be until September. But in the fall, Jack will turn eighteen, and officially age out of the lodging house. So right now he draws his cartoons and sells the evening papers, and saves.

He has some money, of course, he’s been saving to go to Santa Fe for years now, and he’s kept the necessary thrity-eight dollars tucked away, and added to it when he can. But he hasn’t left yet, and that’s because he stayed for the boys. The boys, they needed him, and Jack figures he couldn’t just up and leave them. 

If he wasn’t here, who would pull Smalls and Buttons and the other littles out of fights they couldn’t manage? If he wasn’t here, who would cover a night’s rent when a boy didn’t sell enough papers to manage? If he wasn’t here, who would have kept boys from going to the refuge just by helping them run away? 

Other people, other boys, he guesses. Racer would put ice on Tommy Boy’s latest black eye (and offer useless fighting tips), and Henry would make sure everyone got to eat that day (it takes someone who really loves food to understand how much people need to eat), and Mush would track down the latest bullies and throwdown (do not mistake that boy’s kindness for weakness).

In other words, the boys would do what they already did, and Jack simply wouldn’t be there.

But without Jack, there wouldn’t have been a strike. Davey wouldn’t have made it as a newsie. Medda wouldn’t have her backgrounds. 

Still, Jack doesn’t think he could really bring himself to leave. He’s too attached to his boys. He needs them just as much as they need him. 

And now there was Katherine. 

Kath. Kathy. His beautiful, vibrant, strong woman. She matches him step for step, word for word, comeback to comeback. Around her, he can be nothing but himself, and all the awkward bits that come with. 

She comes to the lodging house on the regular. The boys have adopted her, and it’s normal to find her involved in a game of marbles on the floor with the littles, or talking politics with Elmer, or talking to Specs. They might no longer be kings of new york, but Katherine is still their queen.

It took her some time to understand them. She had to stop viewing them as ‘less’ just because they didn’t have money. It’s a misunderstanding she’s grown up with, lumping them all together as ragamuffins, but she’s learning. They are all people, individuals, with just as much brain as she. 

Wednesday is the night she and the Jacobs brothers have secured to spend at the lodging house until late. It’s always a party, what with fifty rowdy teenagers climbing over bunk beds and crawling under the table and shouting about general happenings. It can be a lot to handle, but both Davey and Katherine manage fine. Les takes like it like a fish to water. 

He missed the point where Davey and Kath become friends, but he guesses it was when he was off sulking at the theatre after the fight. It takes a lot to handle Jack Kelly, but between Davey and Katherine, they seem to have it figured out. She’ll perch on the edge of a table and Davey will sit on a chair beside her while the boys swap selling tales. Both Davey and Katherine are classier than these boys, but it doesn’t change a thing. They’s all family. 

Pulitzer tells Katherine that if she likes the name Plumber so much, she can keep it. So she does. She writes for the Journal, no longer confined to the entertainment pages. She writes about the plights of children, still—sweatshop workers and laundry maids and newsies. Jack calls her the Joan of Arc for the children’s crusade, and Davey tells him that’s not a good metaphor. Whatever. He’s so proud of her, and so proud to remain by her side.

When Pulitzer disowns her, he seems to forget that Katherine has a mother. Katherine got her stubborn streak from her father, but she got her kindness from her mother. Kate Pulitzer talks sense into her husband, and Katherine still lives with them, even if tensions run high. 

Jack takes Kath out for weekly dates—he tries to make it nice, but he’s pressed for cash. She doesn’t seem to mind, weirdly enough, and even seems to enjoy being, well, _normal_ every once in a while. He walks through Brooklyn, trading firm nods with Spot’s boys. He’s here on pleasure, not business.

When summer wears into fall, and Jack figures he should be eighteen, he and Katherine go looking for a cheap apartment for him. They find him a single in a boarding house, room and board, but it allows for visitors during certain hours, and it’s clean, and it’s still in Manhattan, so he’ll see his boys any time there’s a paper. 

“It’s kind of…dismal,” Davey says, shrugging. “No offense.”

“Maybe it just needs a woman’s touch,” Jack says, sidling up to Katherine as Davey rolls his eyes.

She squints at him. “_You’re_ the artist, Mr. Kelly. You can clean this up yourself.”

Davey laughs into his elbow as Jack shuffles his feet. 

It’s small, with a communal bath down the hall, but it’s clean and safe, and it’s good enough for him. He sets to work on filling the room with his cartoon drafts and sketches. Kath comes over to visit often, and she brings so much color into the pale, drab room.

Race is the first newsie to stay over, and, per the norm, he’s running from a fight. He shows up, panting, on the fire escape out Jack’s window, and Jack steps aside to let him in without question. Race flattens himself on the floor, cigar pinched firmly in his lips, and breathes.

Jack looks out the window casually, and sees no pursuers.

“Think you’re safe.”

Race sits up and leans against the wall, eyes shut. His curls are sweaty and pressed to his forehead. There are the beginnings of a bruise under his left eye. 

He looks so messy that Jack feels a surge of panic.

“Is it Snyder?” 

Race’s eyes snap open, fear draining his face of blood. They stare at each other for a minute before Race says slowly, “Jack. The refuge’s closed.”

Jack lets out a sigh, rubbing his right shoulder reflexively. “ Right. Sometimes I—” he gestures with his left hand before letting it drop to his side.

“I know,” Race says, meeting his eyes.

Race knows because Race was _there._

“What is it then? Are the boys safe?”

Race starts gathering himself up. “Yeah, the boys is fine. I’s just in a scrap with some idjit.” 

“What for?” Jack asks, as Race pulls on his cap firmly.

“Awh, I won a bet an’ he wouldn’t pay up. I’s said I’d soak ‘em.” He rubs the back of his neck regretfully. “Turns out he has some big friends.” 

Jack sighs. 

“Thanks for the help, Jack,” Race grins, throwing his arm over Jack’s shoulders in a brief hug before scampering away and swinging his leg out the window.

“Hold on!” Jack grabs at Race’s arm to keep him in the room. Race lets him, doesn’t shake him off or retaliate. “Stay the night, huh? Ya can sleep on the couch.” 

Race pulls himself back into the room. “I should really go back.”

“Specs can handle it, ya knows that.” 

Race considers.

Jack thinks for a minute about mentioning Brooklyn (_How often do you spend the night away in Brooklyn anyway?_) and then reconsiders. He spends several evenings a week in Brooklyn himself. It’s where the Pulitzer’s live. 

“Thank ya, Jack!” Race grins sloppily, and throws himself onto the couch. 

Jack sits opposite him, on the bed, and they talk and joke until far too late, until Race has stopped playing the dumbass and starting being genuine, until he starts nodding off in the middle of the sentence. 

Jack turns off the lights, and when he wakes in the morning, Race is gone.

Crutchie stays the night for the first time in November, and he comes through the door. It’s starting to get cold, the permanent kind that would really make it hell for any boy who can’t pay his lodging, and will make Crutchie’s leg seize up something awful. 

Jack opens the door with a flourish, and Crutchie sweeps off his hat to play along, grinning from ear to ear. 

He hobbles to the couch and sits down, putting the crutch on his knees. The stairs had been harder than Crutchie was going to admit, and Jack says nothing about it. 

“Let’s see this new painting yous been working on!”

Jack grins, puffing out his chest a bit, and carefully turns the canvas around. It’s a skyline, the view from the penthouse, with the stars fading into sunrise. A view Jack and Crutchie had seen many times together or separately. 

Crutchie stares at it for a long minute, eyes scanning carefully over the black shapes of the skyline to the blended yellows and oranges of the horizon, up to the midnight blue speckled with stars. “’S mighty fine, Jack, mighty fine,” he says finally, sunshine smile turned to Jack. 

“Ya really think so?” He puts the canvas back carefully. “First a’ New York an’ not Santa Fe.”

“Beautiful,” Crutchie says, smiling. His smile fades slowly, and he twists his hands together for a minute. “Jack—there’s, there’s somethin’ I been meanin’ ta ask ya.”

“’Course.” 

“After the strike—when I got back—yous said you was gonna head out. I’d just got back, and you was gettin’ ready to leave again!” He frowns, seeming to reign himself in. “Were ya really gonna leave us, just like that?” He doesn’t look at Jack, and that’s how he knows it’s serious. 

Crutchie isn’t big on showing pain. Not physical, not emotional. He sometimes tells Jack when his leg is getting bad, but only sometimes. He sometimes tells Jack when he’s sad, but only sometimes. Most of the time Crutchie buries all that deep down in favor of putting joy into other people’s hearts. He doesn’t like others to see him beat down. 

“Aw, Crutch—”

Crutchie stiffens, head still turned away. 

Jack coughs, clears his throat, then kneels in front of the boy, putting on hand on his knee. “I wouldna made it halfway there ‘fore I hopped off the train and begged to come back.” He says it quietly, seriously, and knows it’s the honest truth. 

“Katherine showed up and you just—” he makes a helpless gesture.

Jack hangs his head. “I know. I let you down. I let you all down.”

“No!” He whips his head around quickly to look Jack dead in the eyes. “No, you looked after us. Doncha ever doubt that.” 

Jack nods, then punches Crutchie’s shoulder gently, just a shadow tap, enough to make him smile. 

“Yous my best friend, Jack. Don’t go replacin’ me.”

Jack swallows, thinking of Dave and Kath. “Couldn’t never.” 

Crutchie grins, that smooth bright smile he gets when he’s actually happy. “Woulda been neat. Santa Fe.”

“Awh, it’s just a city in the desert.” He still wants to go there, someday, but right now, New York holds what he truly loves: his people. 

Crutchie spends in the night in the apartment more than once that winter. It’s cold all too often, and Crutchie has always been sickly, particularly in the cold. He always taps politely at the door and offers to help Jack cook breakfast the next morning. They are still best friends, no, _brothers_, and Jack refuses to let that change.

His apartment becomes a bit of a safe haven/extra boarding room. The boys don’t abuse that power; Jack has always needed his own space and they respect that. But sometimes if they don’t sell enough papes, or if they’re on the run, or if they need to get patched up after a fight, they appear at Jack’s window or door and he lets them in and lets them sleep on his couch. 

Albert comes once, sporting a large black eye and a frown. Jack lets him in and the boy won’t talk for a long time before finally saying, “My dad got drunk. Think Imma move on.” 

Jack nods. “To Duane Street?” 

“F’r as long as they’ll have me. ‘Bout too old.” 

Jack nods again. “You’ll land on ya feet.” 

Albert pulls his cap on backwards, firm and sharp. “Always do. Anyways, us old guys hafta stick tagether, ain’t that right, old man?” 

Jack laughs and gives him an affectionate slap on the back. 

They all take their turns rotating through—Finch with the latest New York underworld gossip; Specs with news on how the boys are faring; Jojo to complain about the cold; Romeo to brag about his latest, much-exaggerated romance. 

Spot comes by to talk business, even though Jack isn’t really a newsie anymore. Spot’s almost too old himself. 

And Jack draws and paints and is happy.

He and Katherine take things slow. Between her father and his…trauma, they have to. She has to learn—do not sneak up on him. Do not touch without permission. Don’t grab his right shoulder. 

She has to learn that he will always be counting pennies, no matter how much money he has on hand. Where she can go to any store in any part of town and buy literally whatever she wants, he can barely afford to buy himself lunch at a café.

He has to learn what it really means to respect her. How to look into her eyes and see a person, not just a girl. How to respect her as such. 

She will continually be followed by the phantom of her father, staring over her shoulder and speaking unkind untruths about her and her work. They have to learn together that they cannot banish the other’s ghosts, but they can help. 

It takes them time, but they are learning. Slowly. Step by step. 

Although Jack courting Katherine is literally Pulitzer’s worse nightmare, he still holds a soft spot for his youngest daughter. He still believes that he made her what she is and she should be grateful, and though that is wrong, he slowly opens himself to the new reality of his daughter and the new century. By the time new years rolls around, he greets Jack by name. Which is progress. He still is stiff, angry, and cold, but he at least recognizes Jack as a human that’s here to stay. 

Kate Pulitzer, however, is absolutely _delighted_ to meet Jack. He’s the first boy Katherine’s brought home, and Kate finds him fascinating. She’s intrigued by his “rags to riches” tale, even though he can’t convince her he’s not really much richer. Katherine rolls her eyes, like she never makes mistakes about Jack’s financial situation. 

The road is rocky, but they’re making their way. 

The new century dawns, and with it, hundreds of young people in New York City look to a better future. Hope is deep in their breasts, and they cling to the belief that the new century will be better. 

For children. For women. For the quiet, unseen queer community. For all of them.

** 

Jack and Katherine get married in the spring of 1903. It happens like this: sometime in the winter, when the cold is really starting to bite, Jack takes Davey and Crutchie to dinner, and he tells them he’s planning to propose. This, of course, excites them greatly, both smiling wide at his happiness. They immediately start spouting advice, never mind that neither of them have sweethearts. 

Jack laughs, watching their bright eyes and eager smiles. He had wanted to tell them first, because they matter to him—his brothers and best friends. 

In the end, Davey gives the most helpful advice. “Remember she’s a writer, Jack. Words matter. Think about what you say before you say it.”

Jack nods. He’s never been the best at thinking about the things that come out of his mouth, but for this, he’ll manage. 

It’s too cold to go for a walk or to sit on a rooftop, which would be his preferred location, so Jack does the best he can. He borrows a gramophone from the boys. Romeo had found it thrown out (thrown out!!) and had brought it back to the lodging. It works pretty well except that it sounds kinda scratchy sometimes. Jack cleans it up and puts it in his apartment (Apartment; he has an apartment now; no more selling newspapers). He turns on some soft music and waltzes with Katherine around the room, a soft smile hovering on his lips. She looks beautiful as always, eyes shining, and when the song ends, Jack kneels and holds out the ring.

He’d been saving for a year for the ring. 

Whatever speech he had planned flies out of his head, and he just stares at Katherine’s awed face as she presses her hands to her mouth and nods. He swallows once and manages, “Kath, I—I still don’t know why you love me, but will you do me the honor of loving me forever?” 

And she nods some more and holds out her hand for him to slip the ring on. 

When he returns the gramophone, he tells the boys what happened, and there is much cheering and back slapping and hand shaking. The boys are getting older now, too, some of them with sweethearts of their own. 

Albert and Race have moved to Brooklyn, renting a room in a boarding house together. Albert works at the docks. Race works at the Sheepshead. Specs has started working as a clerk in a dry goods store. Buttons was still selling papes, but he also picked up part-time work as a tailor’s assistant. Most of them still sold papers, and a few still lived in the lodging house. Younger newsies were moving in, and Jack feels older every time he visits. 

Crutchie still works in Manhattan, but he has started bartending. It’s easy for him to maneuver back and forth behind the bar, and if anyone ever thinks they can pull a fast one on him just because he’s disabled, they are sorely wrong.

Davey had finally been able to go back to school. He had graduated with honors, and had started working as a secretary/accountant/manager/clerk for a nice ladies’ store. It’s the sort of place Katherine and her mother shop. He brings home money to his family, whom he still lives with. His sister, Sarah, is still working at a laundry, and he’d like to give her enough money to get educated. Les moved to Duane St, and is well on his way to leading the newsies. 

Jack and Katherine’s wedding is a bit unconventional, but everything involving Jack Kelly and Katherine Plumber will always be a little unconventional. They get a few things right: the ceremony is in a church, and Katherine does wear white. However, there are about a hundred scrappy boys—newscaps off in respect of the church—wearing what counts as their best, crowding the groom’s side. 

On her side are Bill and Darcy, her friends, and then a hundred wealthy families her mother insisted she invite. 

Katherine is radiant, with flowers woven into her red hair. When she steps through the doors to go down the aisle, Jack’s face goes slack and open, in awe at the woman who chose to love him despite having the sense to know better and choose better prospects. Davey walks her down the aisle, looking proud and teary at the same time. 

Pulitzer is at the wedding, but he is angry and tight, unhappy that his daughter is locking herself into a future that will be poor and fraught with what he calls misery. He will never understand that money can’t buy happiness. 

Their wedding night is not something Jack will forget, not as long as he lives. Let’s be clear here—Jack has kissed people before Katherine. It’s easy enough to flirt his way into a kiss once or twice with girls he meets, and once, when he was about sixteen, one of Medda’s girls who wasn’t much older than him, took him to a back room to show him the ropes. But that’s not the sort of thing he seeks out. He kissed Race once, when they were fifteen and curious, drunk on their release from the refuge, bound together by trauma and comfort. They kiss, and then decide it’s not for them. Not that _boys_ aren’t for them; just that they aren’t for each other. Jack likes kissing anybody—boys, girls—but he doesn’t bother kissing everybody. It’s not that important to him, not unless he really cares about the person.

It’s that night, in their small bed, that Jack learns it really is better with someone you love. 

“Promise me, Jack,” she whispers into his chest, “Promise me we’ll stay young and in love forever.”

And he promises.

And so Jack and Katherine start building a life truly _together._

Their apartment is always full of papers—around Katherine’s typewriter, files of old article drafts, stacked on the kitchen table, discarded drafts of sketches—in the corner is an easel some of the boys built Jack as a wedding gift. He paints small things there, and big things at the commissioners’ place. Medda has given word around that he’s an excellent painter, so little vaudvilles keep him busy doing backdrops. 

He will never not be debt to Medda, he thinks. She just does it out of the goodness of her heart, same as he does. Everything he ever did for the boys she does for him.

The boys learn quickly that their apartment is no less a refuge than it was before the wedding. The couch is and always will be open for those who need it. 

The Jacobs siblings come over once a week for dinner, trading stories, playing games. Sarah and Katherine a close friends, both of them stubborn and determined. Davey and Jack discuss politics and throw around ideas for his next cartoon. Of course, with Sarah and Katherine around, the women’s vote comes up often. Katherine reports on (and is part of) the National Women’s Trade Union League. Davey and Jack both support them. 

Jack was not without his mistakes in that area. 

“Why do women want the vote?” he asks, more out of shock than from actual confusion.

Katherine raises her eyes at him and he knows it means _this would be a good time to shut up._

He’s learned. “Sorry, honey, women need the vote just as much as men do.”

Katherine nods firmly. “Yes. And when someone’s there to write about it, that’s when things get better.”

She attends every rally, every march, she can go to, and Jack supports her through all of it. She keeps her regular reporting, but starts writing under a man’s name about the importance of the vote, because men won’t take her seriously if they know she’s a woman. It’s the unfortunate truth. 

Darcy runs every column, loyal to the last. Darcy supports the suffragettes, and the Tribune keeps publishing for it. 

Pulitzer, to no one’s surprise, is not a fan. He publishes editorials that rant about women’s “emotional tendencies” and other things that make Katherine sigh and roll her eyes. 

Crutchie comes over often enough, but it’s more likely that Jack goes to his bar instead. He’s started seeing a girl, a small, sweet brunette with quiet eyes. Her name is Samantha, and she likes yellow flowers and stargazing. Watching them together makes Jack’s heart melt, seeing how happy and young and in love they are. 

Jack has gotten a bit older now, but he is still young at heart. He still visits the lodging house and can still beat every boy at marbles, and give them piggy-back rides as an apology. He still pulls Race into affection headlocks for hair-rumplings, and still punches and teases and pokes. 

He is still in awe of Katherine, just as he always will be.

Yet, when he passes an unfamiliar (and painfully young) newsboy on the street, he pauses, digs out a dime, and buys a pape. He doesn’t want to go back to that life, no. But he is still wishing for a better world for these children, one he cannot give them. 

**

He gets seven blissful years with Katherine. Seven years of living in a tiny apartment, keeping their friends as close as they can. And then that comes crashing down.

But those seven years are good.

Their friends grow up and age out of Duane St. Les (inevitably) becomes the leader. He learns everything he can about flirting from Romeo (who learned from Jack, who learned from watching the prostitutes). Nevertheless, Les is always taking girls to Medda’s shows. 

Medda herself keeps asking Jack for backgrounds, even as she starts to age. She will always be his comfort and wisdom, firmly young in her heart.

Davey keeps a steady job; Katherine keeps reporting. Crutchie eventually marries Samantha, and they live in the apartment above his saloon peacefully. She’s good for him, both of them with butter-bright smiles. Watching them together is like watching flowers bloom. Crutchie’s leg has gotten better as he has gotten older (and with consistent access to food and warmth). Davey sees a boy or two here and there, but it’s not safe to have a gay relationship like that, and he never finds anyone who sticks around. The longest relationship is a year, and then that man was arrested and never came back to Davey. After that, he just quits trying. It’s too painful.

Albert and Race and Spot all rent an apartment in Brooklyn. Al and Spot load ships all day; Race got arrested for accidentally flirting too much with a man at the Sheepshead and couldn’t work there anymore, so now he works in a factory. Others have moved on or lost touch. Mike and Ike went west; Mush moved to the country to work on a farm. They’ve gotten older, scattered. Their friends struggle, but they live.

Jack and Katherine are still young and in love. Pulitzer eventually stopped hating Jack. Kate still loves them and sends Katherine a monthly allowance they mostly spend on food for dinners with friends, or buy things for the Duane St boys. 

Though they try, there are no children. And really, they’re too busy trying to change the world, but they both want it. They both want a baby, a child, to raise in the new world. And yet there are none. 

Katherine writes long, angry articles about the injustices of the world; Jack draws cartoons to accompany them. Bill and Darcy run the Journal jointly. They’re out to only a few friends, and the Kellys are some of them. It’s another reason to fight for the revolution. No one should fear prison for the sake of love. 

It’s a hell of a seven years—ups and downs, joys and sorrows. It’s a good time. Jack has spent most of his life longing for a family that is more than just vague warm memories. He has it now, broken and messy as it is. His wife, his brother, his best friends. They’re his family. He doesn’t think of Santa Fe anymore, not like he used to. 

Katherine still calls him “the most impossible boy” and he still sketches her in his spare time. He calls her “Mrs. Kelly” and she learns how to make several kinds of pie, because he loves it. They are happy, in their small world. It’s a beautiful life full of pinks and reds and orange and purple. The colors of joy.

And then Katherine is taken from him.

It started simply enough—just a stomach bug, nothing she wasn’t too stubborn to power through on her own. Jack was a little worried. After all, he’d seen his boys go down from things that seemed initially simple. She’s determined she’s fine, and after all, she has a deadline to meet. Within the week, she is pale, bed-ridden, and shaking.

Jack has a sick feeling in his own stomach. He knew it was too good to be true. 

The Pulitzers pull out all the stops to get the best doctors to look after her, but they are too late. Katherine is dying of influenza, and there is nothing they can do but make her comfortable. 

Jack is with her to the very end, as she shakes and heaves and moans. 

She wakes, eyes not glassy for the first time in weeks. 

“Hey baby,” he croaks, taking her head.

“Jack.” She smiles, angelic even with hollowed cheeks. 

“Don’t blame yourself for this, alright?”

Jack frowns and Katherine coughs.

“I know you. You’ll find some way to make it about you. Ego-maniac.” A smile ghosts across her mouth, and he knows she’s teasing. 

“You’re going to be okay, baby, just…hold on for me.”

Katherine shakes her head. “Tomorrow’s changing things for you,” she says. “You gotta remember people love you, okay?” 

He nods, tears pooling in his eyes. “For sure?” he whispers.

“For sure,” she echoes, taking his hand. They stay like that, just holding on, until Katherine goes to sleep. She never wakes up. 

She would have hated her funeral. Pulitzer pulls out all the stops, making it more elaborate than any flower show Kath ever wheezed through. Jack feels painfully out of place, starched collar scratching his neck. 

The newsboys who made it are silent and subdued. Specs cries silently, and Crutchie openly weeps, clinging to his wife’s shoulder. Davey is pale, drawn tight, and reaches to hug Jack. He can’t handle that now, not yet, and reaches a hand to stop Davey, who looks hurt, but only nods and squeezes Jack’s good shoulder before leaving.

Katherine didn’t look like herself—too pale, too flat, too _dead._ She had always been full of life and fight and color, and now she looked like a shadow of herself. 

After, Jack walks across the city, searching for an answers to questions he can’t even articulate.

She had told him once, way back in the beginning, that her fathers’ mistake was getting old. _That’s not a mistake we’ll be making,_ she’d said to him, eyes wild and laughing. _No sir, we’ll stay young forever._ It’s a wish he supposes is granted. She was only twenty-seven. Still very young, still very full of life.

It isn’t fair. She deserved to live long and happy and well. Instead her life was cut too short.

Jack ends up at Davey’s apartment that night, unable to face his silent and cold apartment alone. 

Davey lets him in without a word, and heads to the kitchen to brew a cup of tea. He passes the warm cup to Jack, who squeezes it in his hands before taking a drink. It is too hot, and his tongue scalds. 

For some reason, that is the last straw.

Jack hurls the cup against the wall, grunting a shout, and it shatters gloriously. 

Davey flinches. 

Jack stares at the shards of porcelain in the puddle of tea. With no warning, he bursts into ugly sobs, sinking onto the couch and burying his face in his hands. 

Davey sits beside him, says softly, “Coming in,” and runs his hand up and down Jack’s back. 

Jack lets out two more sobs before turning fully to Davey and wrapping his arms around him, crying into his neck. Davey murmurs to him quietly, nonsense calming syllables. When Jack has cried himself out, he looks up at him and sees that Davey, too, is crying. 

The world is too unfair. Jack is twenty-eight years old, but he feels older than the earth itself.

**

Jack loses his wife that spring. A year later, he loses his best friend.

In the year that passes, Jack has moved out of his old apartment that was haunted by too many memories, and started sharing the apartment with Davey. He continues to work, and to paint, but his subject matter has changed. He no longer favors the oranges and reds that were Katherine’s favorites, but instead chooses blues and greys that paint his depression. When he can, he paints her, vibrant and stubborn as she was in life, trying continually to erase the memory of her pale and fragile on her deathbed. 

A full year has gone by, and they are in the damp and chilly season of spring, when he gets a letter from Crutchie.

His writing skills have improved much, but he still signs it _your brother_, and he asks Jack to come soon. That’s when Jack knows it’s bad. Crutchie never makes note of anything unless it’s really serious, and this feels too heavy. 

He goes straight to the apartment, and Samantha answers the door. Her face is pinched and tight, but she shows no evidence of breaking. She points the way to their bedroom. 

Crutchie is on the bed, hair mussed and face pale. He has lost weight, his clothes hanging baggy, and his bones protruding at his wrists and shoulders. He still smiles when he sees Jack, croaking, “Hey, Jack,” and immediately doubling over to cough. When he wipes his mouth on a handkerchief, Jack spots the blood staining the cloth.

He kneels by the bed. “Hey, buddy. How’s it going?”

“Gee, I’ve never been better. Let me at ‘em.” 

Jack allows himself to laugh. It reminds him sharply of the times in the winters when Cruthcie would go down with yet another illness, and the boys would pool their money to buy medicine and extra food. 

“Listen, I was thinking. When I’m feeling better, you and me should head out to Santa Fe. My leg’s a lot better than it used to be, and I think a change of scene would be good for you—” he pauses to hack sharply into the handkerchief again. Samantha reaches for a glass of water, but he waves her away. “It’d be fun, ya know?”

Jack stares at the boy, heart breaking. He and Cruthcie haven’t talked about Santa Fe in ages. When they were kids, it was something to hold on to when things were hard, a continual dream. He may have been serious about going, but he never did. If Crutchie was talking about Santa Fe, it meant he’d given up hope. He was returning to an old, old dream. 

“Sure,” Jack whispers. “Anywhere you want.”

Crutchie nods, blinks, reaching for Jack’s hand. He takes it, and Jack presses a kiss to the back of his hand. 

Crutchie looks at their hands and smiles. Then his eyes go unfocused and he says, “Jack? Has the bell rung already?” He starts struggling to get up, pushing back the covers. “I gotta sell papes today, I been down too long—”

Jack, panicked and confused, looks to Samantha, who pushes him out the door. Behind him he can hear Crutchie protesting and coughing, and Samantha soothing him. He focuses on the cane leaning against the corner by the door. Just to have something to do with his hands, he picks it up and spins is round.

Samantha comes out of the room, closing the door behind her. She wraps her arms around herself, as though she will shatter if she doesn’t hold herself together.

He stares at her slight form. He was in her place, a year ago, and his heart breaks twice over. 

He sets down the cane. “I’m sorry.”

She shakes her head, biting her lip, and when she speaks her voice comes out watery. “He loved you, you know. Back when you were kids.”

It’s too much for him to process right then, so he says, “He loves you very much. I can see it.”

She chuckles, but it sounds almost like a sob. “I’m so glad he’s going to be healed soon.” 

Jack hasn’t made a habit of going to church, but he has to admit that if heaven meant Crutchie was completely and totally healed, he’d believe it. 

He looks again to Samantha, who presses the back of her hand to her lips. She’s still not crying.

Jack steps closer to her and wraps his arms around her. She presses into his broad chest, leaning against him. “Anything you need, you jus’ ask.” 

She nods into his stomach. 

He was in her place a year ago, and he aches for her, for what is coming, and he aches for himself.

The funeral is two weeks later, simple and quiet. They bury him in a common graveyard, and unlike Katherine, his stone only has his name. Charlie “Crutchie” Morris. It seems too short, too small, to encompass the giant that was Crutchie. 

He was the very heart and soul of the newsies. There was no doubt about that. He brought out the good in everyone—made them all a little softer. Everyone had tripped over themselves to spend time with him, whether to lift him onto their shoulder or to eat a meal with him. His smiles and wit kept them all looking on the brighter side of things. They all worked to protect him—physically in fights, and mentally, too. They all wanted to make sure that Crutchie never viewed himself as any less just because of his leg. 

And Crutchie worked even harder to protect his boys. When they got in fights, Race did the actual patching up, but Crutchie was nearby with an encouraging word or a snarky quip to make them laugh. Even at his lowest—trapped in the Refuge—he asked Jack to tell the boys to look after one another. His heart always lay with his friends. He was their heart not because of how much they cared for him but because of how much he cared for them. 

In the years after they moved out of Duane St, Crutchie was likely to know where they had all gone. He had a way of hanging onto people like that. And people had a way of hanging onto him. 

Race comes to Jack after the funeral, and embraces Jack so tightly he feels the tears being squeezed out of him. They cling to each other, and for a moment Jack feels they are young boys again, clinging to each other as their only hope in the world. 

When he finally lets go, Race’s cheeks are damp as Jack’s own. Race has always been open with affection, and he always held a special love for Crutchie. It reminds Jack that he was not the only one hurt by Crutchie’s death. 

All the boys that could make it are there—Specs, Davey, Les, Albert, Romeo, Buttons, Elmer, even Spot. They all give their condolences to Samantha, promising they’ll do whatever she asks. She nods, still not crying. Jack figures she’ll go home and cry there. Like Crutchie, she doesn’t want people to worry about her. 

They were a good pair.

Jack goes for a walk that night, all across the city. It’s raining. He doesn’t care. 

Every corner he passes, he relives a new memory.

Laying on the roof, early fall, Crutchie curling against him for warmth. 

Selling together in the winter, Crutchie selling nearly as many papers as Jack simply out of others’ pity. It was very cold, and his leg cramped up on their way home, but he stubbornly refused help until he could barely stand. Then Jack had scooped him up and carried him the rest of the way like a baby. Crutchie had been embarrassed by that, so they never talked about it again.

Late June, celebrating Crutchie’s birthday on the summer solstice because he was their sunshiney boy. 

The first time he saw Crutchie shirtless, and the mottled canvas of bruises under his right arm. Jack, shocked, had reached for him, but Crutchie had shrugged and smiled, and quickly buttoned up his shirt.

Sitting on the roof, rehashing their dreams of Santa Fe over and over, Crutchie offering him a firm reality check. 

He wonders what it would have been like, if they had run off to Santa Fe as Jack had promised. Maybe he wouldn’t be where he was today. They could have lived a rough but happy life out there. Jack could have built railroads and Crutchie could have bartended. After all, he was good at it. They could have had a small place with just enough room for the two of them, and maybe—maybe they would have been something more. 

He feels disloyal to the memory of Katherine, fantasizing like that, but—

_ He loved you, you know. Back when you were kids._

There are too many could-have-beens in those words. Too many things left undone. Too much pain to think about it.

When he gets back to his and Davey’s apartment, Davey is waiting on him, looking worried. 

“Thank God, Jack, I thought—”

“What?”

Davey look aside, eyes sad.

“Did you think I’d—?”

Davey nods. “You’ve just—it’s been so much.”

He hangs his head. “I know. Sorry. Shoulda told ya were I’s going, but I didn’t rightly know myself.”

Davey sniffles.

“Aw, hell, Davey.” Jack crosses to his friend and wraps his arms around him tightly. 

Davey cries into his chest, muffled whimpers. After a moment, he pulls back and says, “Jack, you’re soaking. Go change before you get a cold.” 

And it really is the most Davey thing to do, to act like a mother hen at a time like this. 

Jack lies in bed, his shoulder aching from the cold and the rain, and sighs deeply. He is twenty-nine years old. He has lost both his wife and his best friend. He has known too much sorrow for one lifetime, and yet he has also known great joy. He remembers Katherine’s wish to stay young forever, and feels very, very old. 

**

Another year passes. The boys look after Samantha—particularly Race, Albert, and Spot. Jack stops by often enough to see that she’s eating well and in good health. Sometimes he and Davey have her and the rest of their friends over for dinner. 

It’s getting harder, now. Romeo and Buttons moved away. A 40lb bag of sugar drops on Albert while he’s loading a ship and permanently injures his leg. Sarah ran away with one of Medda’s girls. Les has gone to school and is busy courting a nice Jewish girl. (“At least one of the Jacobs children is straight,” says Davey.) Medda has retired, and no longer commissions him. 

Jack’s thoughts again have turned to Santa Fe, or at least somewhere further West than New York. Somewhere we he can walk and not be pursued by too many memories. It’s almost habitual, to curl into the fantasy of a life and a family out west, something magical and fantastic. He has enough money to go, and he’s sure there’d be jobs for an able-bodied man out there. New Mexico has just gained U.S. statehood. They say out there the dry air keeps you healthy and your lungs clear, and Jack thinks of Crutchie and aches. 

He could just pack up and go. He’s made enough, what with there being an election coming up to fuel his cartoons. 

Yet something in him can’t bring him to leave Davey. 

He throws out the idea for the billionth time over breakfast. “Be healthy,” he says. “Santa Fe. Could get a nice job.”

Davey, frying an egg at the stove, tenses. “Then just _go_, Jack.” He whirls, holding the spatula like a weapon. “Quit moping around here and go. I can’t stand to hear about it again—how you want to leave—leave me.” He slumps, and the fight drains right out of him.

“Davey—”

“Look, Jack, I’m sorry. I can’t stand to hear how you want to leave me if you’re just going to stay.” 

“Dave. What’s gotten into you?”

Davey sets down the spatula with precision, emotions collected under the service. “I’m going to work. Enjoy the egg.”

Dumbfounded, Jack watches him grab his coat and keys and go. 

And then he sits back and does some thinking. He thinks through a lot of things—feelings, facts, folks. 

He thinks about actually packing up and leaving, catching a train and heading west. He thought about how painfully alone he would be. 

He thinks about Santa Fe, and the realization that it’s a dream. It’s a dream, something he clings to when he needs to be happy, when he needs to believe that somewhere in the world, things aren’t totally hopeless. 

He thinks of Katherine, who loved him loudly and vibrantly and fully. He thinks of Crutchie, who loved him and never said a thing. And he thinks of Davey. 

David. Dave. Davey. Best friend. Stood by him through thick and thin. He couldn’t bring himself to leave him behind now. 

When Davey gets home that night, Jack has cooked dinner, to the best of his abilities on their budget. Suspicious but pleased, Davey eats it slowly. 

As they finish, Jack says, “Davey, look, I’s been thinkin’ bout what you said this morning.” He looks at Davey, then looks away quick. “An’ I know I haven’t been fair in this. But I have a question—if you’ll. If you’ll.” He coughs, breathes deeply. “Look, you don’t have to, and if you say no, I’m not going anywhere, but would you come with me? West, I mean. We don’t have to go clear to Santa Fe, we can stop anywhere you please, but I won’t go without you. Cause Davey—I—I—” He stops, and looks into the other’s boy’s dark eyes, evenly holding his own. He can’t quite bring himself to finish. He’s never been good with words. 

“Are you asking me to run away with you?” Davey asks, almost like it’s a joke.

“Yes! No! I—” Jack grunts, then says, “Davey. It took me a while to figure it out, but I—I like you.” He pushes the words out of his mouth, and lets them sit on the table. 

“Jackie…” Davey stares at him, and in a swift movement, stands and crosses to Jack. He tips his face up in both hands and kisses him, sure and full of feeling. Jack sucks in a breath, surprised. Thrilled. Happy. For the first time in months, he is truly happy. 

Davey lets him go fast, but Jack grabs him by the hips to keep his there. He stands, closer to eye-level now, and returns Davey’s kiss, deep and full. 

They are second-hand lovers. Both of them have loved and been loved by others. They are broken in, like soft hand-me-down sweaters, familiar with their bodies and their hearts, but this is still new. Their love grows timidly, shyly, learning again what makes love truly bloom. They are second-hand lovers, but they are also something entirely new. 

They don’t leave right away, but eventually they do head west. They take time to say an adequate goodbye to all their friends they can find. Race in particular takes it hard and makes them promise to write. Les and Davey’s mother are sad to see them go, but Davey promises to come back for Les’ wedding and to stay in touch. 

There is beauty in learning how to love someone who you’ve loved all along. Jack and Davey have been best friends for ages, and this doesn’t change that. Dave still gets annoyed when Jack leaves his dirty boots in the walkway, and Jack still gets tongue tied when talking about feelings, and neither of them really know how to cook well, but it doesn’t matter. They have a sliver of happiness again. 

Jack is thirty, still young, in his own way. He’s no longer a boy by any means, and neither is Davey. They’ve lived too much to keep the wide-eyed innocence of children. But youth doesn’t mean age. It means joy, it means rebellion. That’s what they have. A quiet rebellion of joy, together. 

**If you liked this work, you may also enjoy:**

[their mistake is they got old](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16286945) by PenzyRome

**Author's Note:**

> So this musical currently owns me. If you want to talk about it (or prompt me) my [tumblr](http://www.stillusesapencil.tumblr.com) is here, and my ask is always open.


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